Health Ministry to Designate More Hospitals as Encology Centres of Excellence

Health Ministry to Designate More Hospitals as Encology Centres of Excellence

The Federal Ministry of Health is set to collaborate with the Cancer Education and Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria (CEAFON) and ROCHE Products Limited in scaling up six more Federal Tertiary Hospitals to make them Oncology Centers of Excellence. The designated hospitals to be upgraded in the six geopolitical zones of the country are: University Teaching Hospital Sokoto (North West), University Teaching Hospital Maiduguri (North East), UCH Ibadan (South West), UTH Benin (South South), University of Nigeria Teaching Hospitality Enugu (South East) and ABU Teaching Hospital, Zaria, this is already so designated.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr. Linus Awute, today, in Abuja, announced this when key officials of the Cancer Education and Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria (CEAFON) and ROCHE Products Limited paid him a visit to seek areas of possible collaboration for the conduct of the Nigeria National Cervical Cancer Screening Scale up project.

In his speech, Mr. Awute said the intervention efforts from the private sector practitioners like Roche is in line with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) which according to him is the best legacy of the Health Ministry and an important strategy for addressing the challenge of non-communicable diseases and Cancer care in particular.

In his response, the Country Manager, Roche Products Ltd, Herman Addae, informed that Cancer is a leading cause of death, however, enough attention is not given to it because of reasons ranging from: unavailability of data, lack of enough medical specialists, poor funding and inadequate sensitization amongst others.